Monday 29 July 2013

July Horse Agility - Summer of Sport

We decided to enter the Pairs class for July. One problem - if you are both taking part you need a third person to do the filming !
Fortunately our friend and mule-lover Gill  walked in right on cue. Gill has adopted Jasper so she had to have a go with him too.Here is Sue with Jake and Gill with Jasper. Now Jasper is still very uncertain of strange things, being a shy person, so - didn't they do well ? !!


There are points for doing the obstacles properly and on a loose rope and special points for co-ordination and free flow between the obstacles.   Ahh well.............
Here's Sue with Peter and Bart with Kiwi.
...and here's Gill with Peter and Bart with Kiwi. Gill is very experienced with mules and knows just how to be gentle and calm with the donkeys. She is a  member of the British Mule Society.

Here's our mule Giffy in action with Sue and Bart has her donkey friend Wellington. This is the first time Welly had done an agility course. Not bad for a 30-yr-old !

Last but not least here's Sue with Charlie and Bart with Noah


Tuesday 16 July 2013

Yippee !! Yahoo !  whee !!!!!!
Sue and baby Kiwi have passed their Parelli level 1. We got 1++  too so we are really pleased !
Lots of thanks to Parelli folks near and far, the International Horse Agility Club for getting us out to practice by competing at agility and Bart the cameraman.  :>)
This is our 'Audition' :

Tuesday 2 July 2013

Sinead has a go too on the windy agility course

And here's Sinead :

Our mother donkeys Sinead is 9 and quite bossy but very gentle and friendly. She likes to do what she wants and can be quite impossible to move, or stop, at times !
Underneath she is not so confident really.......

Charlie on the June agility course

Here's little Charlie showing what a confident little chap he is. I do wonder what was up with those cones.....

Wellington and Bart having a go at the June agility starter level course.

Well.....we wanted to have a go at agility with some of our donkeys who had not done it before or not had much practice. It would be good for them and we hope it might encourage some of you good folks out there to come and compete with us in the International Horse Agility Club. We know these guys will have a low score but that's OK - you can beat us easily !

When we started filming the weather was dull but OK. THEN...the wind got up and it became a bit wild !

Here's Wellington, who is now our eldest donkey, doing his best - and doing a remarkably good job too.

Giffy the Mule and horse agility

Here's Giffy doing her first full round of agility. We would loose LOADs of marks for tight ropes , poor backing etc,  etc ....  she actually has a very good reverse gear ( she is a driving mule and very good at reversing her cart) so we just have to learn how to switch it on when needed!

Peter the barrel-basher thought the barrels didn't look right standing up and Charlie decided the cameraman needed some help.

It was VERY windy by the time we did the filming so Giffy did very well and showed the benefit of her 34 years of experience of life's challenges !

(and I seem to have worked out how to get a picture to link to the video !)